Pebble Island to Sea Lion Island, Falklands

4 - 5 March 2006

Elephant seals and more penguins

Another 40-minute flight with light winds and mostly clear skies. There was no headwind component for landing on the short (496 m) runway 36 (winds 270 at 10 knots), but we managed nevertheless to stop after 300 m or so. A FIGAS plane landed shortly after us with new guests for the Lodge. We suggested a spot to leave our plane to be out of FIGAS’s way and the pilot said that would be fine.

Sea Lion Lodge is managed by Rob McKay, a young Scot, with the help of Angela from Mallorca (Spain). As on Pebble Island, most of the guests lived in the Falklands. We got talking to a man who reminded us of Gerard Robson (Stanley airport manager) and, sure enough, he turned out to be his brother Raymond Robson.
 

Flemming also spoke to two English couples and understood from the conversation that one of the men obviously was working for the military. So when Flemming asked him what he was actually doing at Mount Pleasant he replied that he was in fact the Commander of the British Forces in the Falklands! He already knew about us and our plane as he had seen our request for the use of the military Mount Pleasant airport as an alternate (it has an ILS) for Port Stanley should the weather go really foul.